I love to cook when at the cabin. Weather on the wood stove, solar oven or small propane range preparing meals is enjoyable. Unfortunately the logistics can sometimes be a burden doubling and often tripling the prep time. Cooking anything in the solar oven takes several hours and requires good sun. The wood stove needs time to heat up, cannot be easily regulated and will drive you out of the house on a warm day.
The upside is that solar cooking is free and easy. Plus there is nothing better than getting up on a cold morning, re-firing the wood stove, putting coffee on top to brew then jumping back under the covers. When the coffee has percolated you make some pancakes on the griddle and have breakfast.
My propane range is an Outback Gourmet Camp Stove. This indoor/outdoor stove has two top burners and a small oven for baking. I really like it. It sits on the kitchen counter and is connected to a twenty pound bottle of propane outside. Propane is an excellent fuel for cooking, instant heat and easily adjustable. However propane is not a renewable resource and in the future could become very expensive if not impossible to acquire.
When I move to the cabin permanently there will be enough power to use an automatic coffee maker and a small microwave on a limited basis. At first glance it would appear that using these items moves away from the simple life. But think about it. The cabin is independent from commercial power, completely off-grid. So using the electric coffee maker and microwave produce absolutely no carbon by-products, it is clean and renewable. This cannot be said about the wood or propane stoves.
This is one of the neatest things I have seen in a long time. This stove is a wood/gas hybrid. The right side is propane the left is old school wood. I have found several of these on CraigsList in my area. They run anywhere from 200 to 1300 dollars. I may try to pick one up in the next few months just cause I like it so much.
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Bear, I love your stoves, both of them. The hybrid is a great thing never seen one before. In my opinion there is nothing at all wrong with using electricty as long as you can make it yourself use all you want. I have been thinking about an outside kitchen here on the farm. Gets me outside and keeps the heat out there too. Just something simple.
Chris
In pioneer times here in Florida a common building style was called the "Dog Trot House". There was basically an open (to the outside) hallway between the kitchen and the rest of the house.
This kept the heat away from the rest of the house and the breeze way helped cool.
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